When it comes to hosting the latest in bioterror defense, don’t mess with Texas. A coalition of nonprofit and business groups calling itself the Texas Biological and Agro-Defense Consortium has filed a lawsuit to stop the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from building its new $720 million biodefense laboratory at Kansas State University. The decision to award the lab to Kansas was made by the Bush administration in December and confirmed by the Obama transition team in January. The Texas groups believe the Lone Star State should have won the right to host the new National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility, where scientists will study such diseases as Rift Valley fever, the Nipah and Hendra viruses, and African swine fever to keep them from becoming terrorist threats.
The lawsuit seeks to have Texas Research Park in San Antonio named the new home of the research lab. Texas representatives point out that the Kansas location would put the lab in or at least on the edge of Tornado Alley, a region of the Central Plains notorious for the violence and frequency of its tornadoes.
The lawsuit also alleges that Kansas Republican Sens. Pat Roberts and Sam Brownback exercised improper political influence over the decision by DHS to name a winner among the finalists, which included Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina and New York. Texas claims DHS officials met with Kansas state and federal lawmakers, including Roberts and Brownback, without the presence of counsel, as required by department policy. Also, DHS allegedly told the Texas consortium it would not meet with any representatives from states in the competition.
Some Kansas officials can’t help but laugh at the fact that Texas is accusing their little ole state of throwing around its political clout to win the biodefense competition. When the search first began three years ago, it was Kansans who publicly fretted about Texas’ advantage, given then-President George W. Bush was from Texas and the fact that the Texas congressional delegation outnumbers Kansas’, 34-6.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
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